Born Behind Bars

by Padma Venkatraman

The sky lightens as we follow him through a maze of streets, ending on one that’s bordered with small shops. The man unlocks and rolls up a metal grate.

  “Such a pretty headscarf!” Rani points at a bright pink scarf that flutters like a butterfly as the man hangs it up.

  Thinking of my butterfly and pretending I’m holding it in my hands gives me courage. I ask Rani to wait for me at the corner, and I walk over to the shop.

  “You’re up early. What do you want, boy?” The man’s voice isn’t particularly kind. It’s not at all the voice he used with his children yesterday.

  But then, I’m not family. I’m not even a customer. I’m just some kid off the street, the kind no one wants to look at, let alone speak to.

  At least he said something to me. I want to say something back but can’t seem to find my tongue, and all I manage is a sort of squeak.

  “Came to buy your mother a sari?” The man grins as if he’s made a joke.

  “No, sir.”

  He starts polishing a counter.

  “Sir, is your name Khan?” I ask.

  “No, boy. Why?” The man narrows his eyes suspiciously.

  I shift nervously from one foot to another. “My grandfather’s name is Khan. I’m trying to find him and was wondering if maybe you knew him, sir, because he worships at the same mosque, I think?”

  “How do you know where I worship? And what are you doing alone on the street so early?”

  “Never mind.” Tears prick at my eyes, and I try to hold them in, but they find their way out. Before the trickle can turn into a stream, I brush them off with the back of my hand.

  I turn away, ready to race up the street to where Rani is waiting for me, but I see her racing toward us.

  In the distance, we can hear the tramp of feet. Coming closer. And angry chants. Getting louder.

  51

  Surrounded

  The chanting dies off for a second, but then there’s a loud crash. Triumphant whistles. A whoop before the chants resume—“Tamils, get out!”

  “What’re you waiting for?” Rani asks the man. “I can’t understand exactly what they’re saying, but I can tell that mob isn’t singing the praises of Tamils. Lock up your shop, mister!”

  At Rani’s command, the man tears down the pink scarf that’s hanging on the storefront. Rani and I take down another.

  The man begins to yank down the metal grating in front of the shop. “Get in the shop, you two,” he says, but Rani grabs Jay and plonks him onto my shoulder while she ducks out.

  “Come back!” I shout.

  “Can’t breathe inside a box.” Rani clambers up the waterspout on the side of shop and onto the low tin roof. “You stay and keep Jay safe.”

  “Help me up, mister! I need to stay with her!”

  “Don’t be silly!” the man says. But when he sees me struggling to get to Rani, he grunts, “Okay, then, but lie down and keep out of sight.” He lifts me high enough that Rani can reach my hand and pull me up.

  We lie on the tin roof and watch as five or six men turn the corner. I squirm like a rat caught in Grandma Knife’s hands.

  “This one is a Tamil store!” one of them shouts. “The owner is inside. I saw him!”

  I lift my head slightly, just in time to see the tallest man aim a bottle at the storefront. I hear glass shattering and tinkling onto the pavement.

  “Someone is on the roof,” another man yells. “Bet they’re Tamils too.”

  Rani pulls her slingshot and stones out of her waist pouch.

  “No.” I grab her hand. “You’ll make them angrier.”

  “I’m not giving up without a fight,” she whispers fiercely.

  “Wait!” An idea strikes me, just like it did when I escaped from Fake Uncle. “You said other people are scared of the Roma and believe you can tell the future, so try this—stand up and repeat what I say in Kannada.”

  Rani pauses for a second, then leaps up and glares at the men as if she’s their queen.

  Jay cocks his head at her, and then at me, as if he’s trying to make sense of what’s happening.

  Rani catches my Kannada words and repeats them without faltering. “Stop! You must leave now or you will suffer!”

  For a moment, the crowd falls silent. Then a voice rasps, “That’s just a kid up there!”

  I prompt Rani and she continues, “Spirits of my ancestors—tell me, will these men get away with this destruction?”

  Then I give Jay the cue to repeat my words, hoping he’ll obey me as well as he obeys Rani.

  “Never!” he echoes me. “Never! Never!”

  “Did you hear that?” Someone in the crowd sounds scared. “It didn’t sound human.”

  “Go’way, punk,” Jay shrieks. And he adds the string of curse words he likes to attach to it.

  “Let’s leave now!” someone shouts.

  But the tall man who threw the bottle is not to be stopped. He runs around the side of the building and starts clambering up the waterspout. “It’s just two kids!”

  “No!” I jump up and rush toward him. “No!”

  He’s trying to pull himself onto the roof, but I won’t let him. I’ll never let him lay a hand on Rani. I stomp on his fingers as hard as I can, again and again. He swears but doesn’t let go and swipes at my ankles.

  “No!” Jay’s screech pierces my ear. “No, no, no . . .”

  And then I hear another screech—the screech of a police siren.

  Tires squeal. A police van pulls up and policemen pour out.

  The bad men can’t escape the police. They’re trapped. But so are we.

  52

  Caught by the Police

  We hear a thud and a howl—the sort of howl that came from the punishment block in jail. The police are down below, beating someone.

  I crouch next to Rani and mumble a prayer. God of the sky whom I can’t see, please help me and Rani and Jay.

  Then someone’s hands are on my shoulders. Steadying me. A strong—but also gentle—touch. I open my eyes.

  It’s a bearded policeman, on the roof with us. “You’re safe now, children. Come on down.” He helps me slither to the ground, and Rani follows.

  “You need to come with me to the police station and answer some questions, okay?” he says to Rani, who stares blankly at him.

  “She doesn’t speak Kannada,” I say quietly.

  “Glad you do. And I can speak Tamil too. Nice that you and I speak more than one language, isn’t it? I’ll use Tamil so you can both understand me.” The policeman holds out his hand. “Trust me, little brother.”

  I feel dizzy. Rani and I climb into the waiting police van because they tell us to and there’s nowhere else to go.

  The store man gets inside our van too. He keeps saying, “Praise Allah we’re safe.”

  I slide closer to Rani.

  “May I take a picture?” he asks, his voice and hands shaking. “You two are heroes. You saved me. And my store. You bought us time so I could call the police. Can’t believe how brave you were, distracting the crowd!”

  I feel too tired to reply. But Rani looks worse, so I put an arm around her shoulders. Jay walks off my shoulder and onto hers.

  The van stops, and we stumble out and into a police station. The store man is talking and talking, but my head feels as tiny as a butterfly’s—too small to make sense of anything.

  Another policeman takes the store man away, and our policeman takes us into a small room and asks us to sit down.

  “Mr. Faisal says you two saved his life and saved his store. He says you warned him about the crowd, just in the nick of time. And then held them off until we came.” The policeman tugs on his beard. “I believe him, and I’m sure you both are heroes, but I need you to tell us what happened too. Okay?”

  “I hate indoors.” Rani jiggles her legs. “I need
to get outside.”

  “No one will hurt you here,” the policeman promises. “Don’t be scared.”

  “She’s braver than me,” I say quietly. “She just really doesn’t like sitting inside rooms.”

  “How about we sit outside, then?” The policeman leads us to a yard, walled in and small, but open to the sky. “What do you like to drink?”

  Rani squints at him, still suspicious, but says, “Soda.”

  “No problem. You too?” he asks me.

  “Yes,” I say, because I feel too tired to think. Or do anything more than link fingers with Rani. “Thank you, sir.”

  We sit on plastic chairs, and another man brings us drinks. My glass is tall. The outside is misty. When I touch it, it’s wet. This time, I don’t mind the fizzy bubbles scratching my throat. I feel lucky to be unharmed. I put my cheek against the cool glass. This police station is much nicer than the one where I met my uncle, and the policeman seems nicer too.

  “Let’s start with your names,” the policeman says.

  Rani presses her lips together in a tight line.

  “We’re here to help you,” he says. “But we need you to speak to us.”

  I look into the man’s eyes. Would Amma trust him?

  The policeman strokes his beard and waits. Patiently. Silently.

  I decide that the policeman’s face and the touch of his hand—and just his way about him—are good enough to trust. He reminds me of Mr. Subramaniam, who helped us out at the ticket booth and said he used to be a policeman too.

  My voice takes a little while to find. But when I do, I tell the policeman everything, because I hope telling the truth will help him trust me back.

  Even though I was born behind bars.

  53

  The Way Ahead

  Rani’s eyes flit over the wall that runs along the yard as if she wants to climb over it. “Can we go now?” she asks when I finish my story.

  “I’d really like to help you,” the policeman says. “Outside is not the safest place for kids on their own.”

  “But outside is where we live, sir,” I say. “Us and lots of other kids.”

  “I just mean I want to help you both find a safe place to stay. No child should have to live on the streets.”

  “If you want to help, then can you help me find my grandparents, sir?” I ask.

  “That’s exactly what I want to try and do for you, Kabir. But in the meantime, you need a place to stay. I know a woman who runs a school—”

  “Is it an orphanage? My mother didn’t want me to go to an orphanage.”

  “No. Not at all. Look. Here’s the school.” He fishes a phone out of his pocket, types in a few words, and then shows me pictures as real as TV pictures, and even some short movies, showing kids talking and laughing.

  The sound of their laughter makes Rani curious, I think, because I feel her breath on my shoulder as she peeks over me.

  “It doesn’t seem like a bad place to wait,” Rani says, “while they’re finding your family.”

  “Good. Now, how about some lunch?” The policeman leaves us with a policewoman, who sits with us in the courtyard when our food arrives and shows us some funny videos on her phone.

  “Phones are like magic,” I tell her.

  “True.” She laughs. “They call them smartphones for a reason—you can find out pretty much anything you want to, using a phone.”

  “How does it know so much?”

  “That’s beyond me.” She shrugs. “But here’s how to find things on a phone. Look.”

  She shows me how to search famous people and places, step by step. It’s fascinating to watch pictures of people and places pop up on the screen.

  With her help, I can even look up all the people with the last name of Khan in Bengaluru. But it seems like there are thousands, so there’s no way to know which ones might be my grandparents. But she says not to worry, the police are on it, and they’ve got other ways to search for people.

  Afterward, our policeman returns, this time with a tall, skinny lady who is the head of the school he talked to us about.

  Rani’s feet twitch, and I’m scared she’s still thinking of running away, but she surprises me by smiling back at the woman.

  “Rani and Kabir?” Something about the woman’s voice—firm but kind—reminds me of Bedi Ma’am. “I’m Viji Aunty.”

  I don’t mind that she wants me to call her Aunty, even though she’s no more my aunty than Aunty Cloud. And her Tamil is as good as ours, with the same accent.

  “I’m told you’ve seen pictures of my Center for Children,” she says. “We’d like to take you there. Do you have any questions for me?”

  This must be the first time a grown-up has asked me if I had any questions. Not even Bedi Ma’am ever asked me that.

  “If I come, can I leave whenever I want, if I want?” Rani asks. “And how do you punish kids who break your rules?”

  “We don’t believe in punishment,” Viji Aunty says. “Our only rules are to be good to yourself and others. There’s a wall around the school. But it’s to protect against bad people coming in—to keep the children safe. If you ever wanted to leave, you’d just have to let us know, though we’ve never yet had a child who wanted to leave us.”

  “I’d have to sleep inside a room, wouldn’t I?”

  “Not if you don’t want to,” Viji Aunty says, and I see Rani’s eyes light up for the first time since we arrived here.

  Viji Aunty explains she has other children who live in tents on the property and have lessons under a banyan tree. “I’m never going to try and change the way anyone wants to live, so long as they’re being good. But that said, I do want my students to get some schooling.”

  “Why?” Rani asks.

  “So you have more ways to deal with the world out there.”

  “I can live without anyone’s help,” Rani says.

  “I respect that,” Viji Aunty says. “But learning things at school isn’t going to take away your independence—it’s going to add to it.”

  “Right,” I chime in. “I like school, Aunty.”

  Viji Aunty flashes me a smile, then turns to Rani. “I’m sure you know, Rani, that your people came from India, but they now live all over the world. The Roma have traveled more than any other group of people I can think of. But they aren’t respected as much as they should be. At our school, you could learn new things—and maybe someday, if you wanted, you could help Roma fight for equality.”

  Rani is quiet for a bit. I can almost see her thoughts floating away into the sky, imagining herself older.

  “I think you’ll be happy if you give it a chance, Rani,” Viji Aunty says. “I’ve always believed there are many different roads you can take to get somewhere. And you look like a girl who can build a new road for herself if she needs it.”

  Viji Aunty asks the policeman if we can stay on a few hours, until the evening, so she can take care of a few errands. “And then I can pick you up later, if that’s all right. You can try out the school for a few days and see if you like it.”

  “I guess it should be fine for them to stay here a while longer,” the policeman says. “I’ve had a phone call—a lead I need to follow up on—so maybe you kids can get some rest out here in the courtyard.”

  He brings us a thick, beautiful cotton spread that’s softer than any mat I’ve ever felt.

  “Well, Prince of Mind Readers, you’re pretty good at figuring out people,” Rani says when we’re alone. “Maybe even better than me. I’m glad you trusted this policeman.”

  She stretches out on the spread. I curl up next to her, stroke the thick cloth, and try to fall asleep, while Jay watches over us with his bright eyes.

  54

  Time

  When I wake up, it’s dusk. Fireflies twinkle around me like a crowd of visiting stars. They’re so pret
ty, I want to lie back and keep gazing at them, but I notice Rani isn’t next to me.

  I sit up and look around. No Rani anywhere.

  Just a man and a woman, sitting on chairs, looking at me. The woman has a lined face that makes her look as if she’s smiling even though she isn’t. The man has a silvery beard, a crinkly forehead, and gentle eyes peeking out from beneath brows as straight as my own.

  They watch me. I watch them back.

  We’re silent and still as statues. My body feels like it’s floating in a dream, until a mosquito decides to bite me.

  I slap the mosquito. At that sharp sound, the man’s eyes snap as if he’s waking up from a dream too.

  The woman stretches out her arms. Her face gets so crinkled up, her eyes almost disappear.

  “Kabir?” The man clears his throat a few times. “I’m your ajja, and this is your ajji.”

  My grandparents.

  When I stay silent, my grandmother says, “Or you can say Thatha and Patti, if you prefer the Tamil words.”

  I have so many questions in my head that my tongue isn’t sure which one to ask first. It doesn’t move.

  Which is fine, I realize, because Thatha and Patti aren’t going anywhere. Apparently they’ve been waiting for me to wake up, sitting patiently while I slept.

  After I escaped from Fake Uncle and Snake Man, a part of me has been running nonstop, and time has been running with me.

  I no longer need to run.

  55

  Trust

  Our policeman strides into the courtyard. “I see you’ve met your grandparents, Kabir.”

  “How did you find them so quickly, sir?” It’s easier for me to talk to our policeman, somehow. “And where’s Rani?”

  “Rani and Viji Ma’am are taking a walk together. As for finding your grandparents, that’s the greatest success story of my career.” He pats his beard proudly. “Mr. Faisal, the owner of the store, took photos of you and put them on the internet. He shouldn’t have done it, but in this case, it helped. We have a good detective here—and with everyone on all sides working together, everything fell into place quickly. Apparently, your grandparents were on the lookout for you, and luckily they saw the photo Mr. Faisal posted.”